He also advised that any consumers who think they have received spam texts should delete them immediately, referring to these free offers as "garbage."

Specifically, the FTC is interested in cracking down on fake marketing ploys related to "free" gift cards.

The federal agency said that these cyber hoodlums have "allegedly bombarded consumers" with approximately 180 million unwanted spam text messages.

Most of these messages reportedly went to random phone numbers, including consumers who don't even have texting plans on their mobile subscriptions. The FTC cited that demographic accounts for approximately 12 percent of mobile users nationwide.

According to the FTC's statement, these messages teased consumers with the potential to win gift cards worth up to $1,000 from major retailers such as Best Buy, Walmart, and Target.

Besides no real prize in sight, the bigger problem for consumers was that clicking on the offers opened them up to identity theft because the fake offers asked for sensitive personal data to pay for services that would lead to the "free" gift cards.

The FTC has actually already gotten the ball rolling by charging 29 defendants in eight different complaints in courts across the United States.

Rachel King is a staff writer for CBS Interactive based in San Francisco, covering business and enterprise technology for ZDNet, CNET and SmartPlanet.
She has previously worked for The Business Insider, FastCompany.com, CNN's San Francisco bureau and the U.S. Department of State. Rachel has also written for MainStreet.com, Irish Americ...
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